Management Professor Mahesh Subramony is intrigued by humanity on the service frontlines.
How do employees and customers treat each other? What are the consequences of these interactions for their well-being and the performance of service establishments? These and similar kinds of questions guide his research in a variety of contexts: college bookstores, temporary help services, airlines, machine repair and ridesharing. He notes that nearly two-thirds of the global workforce is involved in the delivery of services, but a “perfect storm” of conditions — including changing technology, disruptive events such as pandemics and new norms regarding human interactions — are transforming the frontlines.
Subramony’s interdisciplinary research program has resulted in collaborations with scholars across the fields of management, marketing, operations, hospitality, psychology and information technology; and across continents: Asia, Australia, the Americas and Europe. Besides publishing in reputed academic journals, he sits on the editorial review boards of many journals, has served as associate editor and collaborates with industry through the Center for Human Capital and Leadership at NIU.
For his research accomplishments, his service to his field and the timeliness of his findings, Subramony has been awarded the 2025 Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professorship (PRSAP), the university’s top recognition for outstanding research or artistry. This is the first time this award has been given to a faculty member in the College of Business.
Following a nomination process, the PRSAP awards are given out annually to select faculty in recognition and support of NIU’s research and artistic mission. This honor is accompanied by special financial support of the recipient’s research for four years, after which they carry the title of Distinguished Research Professor.
In his nomination letter, Markus Groth, professor of organizational behavior at UNSW Sydney’s business school said about Subramony, “When it comes to the intersection of organizations, human service practice and frontline service experiences, he has established himself as one of the most important researchers in this domain … he just has a unique ability to conceptualize and carry out research in a manner that truly matters to our science. The quality of his work, coupled with the quantity of work in top outlets, places him at the forefront in our research field.”
Similarly, Michael Brady, assistant provost and professor of marketing for Rockwood School of Marketing at Florida State University, noted Subramony’s leadership in his field. “He is a leader in a cross-disciplinary, timely and growing research area … there is a clear mandate in academia, and particularly in business, to push beyond the boundaries of disciplinary silos, and Mahesh is clearly at the forefront of this movement.”
Professor Na Fu, chair of Responsible Leadership at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, commended his “exceptional mentorship qualities, fostering a supportive and inspiring environment for his students and collaborators, consistently extending the same care to the next generation of scholars.”
With this award, Subramony hopes to invest in the global consortium Work and Employment in Service, or WeServe, that he helped create. This consortium — through mentoring workshops and collaborative research projects — has brought together more than 50 established and emerging scholars conducting frontlines-related research around the world.
He is hoping to have even more influence on the discussion about frontline workers in the future.
“Now that I have this incredible honor and everything that comes with it, I’m asking myself ‘How can I have a bigger impact?’” Subramony said. “How can I use this honor as a force to truly make service work more human in these changing times?”
